| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| Petraeus Runs into Karzai's Resistance: Reports |
| 2010-07-10 |
| [Quqnoos] General David Petraeus has met sharp resistance from the Afghan President over a US plan recruiting villagers, the Washington Post reports After Karzai renewed his objections to the plan in a meeting with the new commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, it turned tense, according to US officials. The idea of recruiting villagers into local defence programmes is a key part of the US military strategy in Afghanistan, and Karzai's stance poses an early challenge to Petraeus as he tries to build a collaborative relationship with the Afghan leader. The US would like to expand the programme to about two dozen sites across Afghanistan and we are hoping to overcome Karzai's concerns, Senior US officials said. But the issue is delicate to many who fear that such experiments could lead Afghanistan further into warlordism and out-of-control militias. The Washington Post quoted from a senior Afghan official who was present at Karzai's meeting with Petraeus as saying, "We always have long meetings and many arguments, we always try to teach our foreign partners how to deal with a situation like this. We Afghans know better than you." A plan for local defence forces was expected to be endorsed Thursday in Kabul at a coordination meeting of Afghan officials with military and civilian representatives from donor countries. The endorsed plan is to be introducted at an International Conference in Kabul on 20th July. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Amazing. Karzai: we installed him as preferrable to the Taliban but now we have a new enemy. If we take one lesson from Afghanistan/Iraq please let us learn that you cannot be half-arsed about defeating people. You need to defeat them utterly. They must be crushed. There needs martial law, and a soldier on every corner. A new alien system of democracy if it is to be imposed would have had to be imposed by force, which would have had to be policed properly for 15 years giving law and order, and a chance for the new institutions to take root - and for people to work within them. Instead, it's chaos as they simply wait us out of there. No strong institutions have been made and the Islamist movement is as strong as it ever was. If we didn't have the stomach for an occupation (like that of Japan/Germany after WWII) then we shouldn't have gone in at all. Notice how every hot war since WWII has been an abject failure? Because of our failure of occupation. |
| Posted by: anon1 2010-07-10 20:29 |
| #2 much easier to manage the corruption and graft in a top-down than in a bottom up. Karzai is worried that he wont be able to take his full cut. |
| Posted by: abu do you love 2010-07-10 19:20 |
| #1 But the issue is delicate to many who fear that such experiments could lead Afghanistan further into warlordism and out-of-control militias. Sounds like the liberals got there first. |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-07-10 13:16 |